Open AccessImproving the Passive Energy Performance of the Buildings’ Envelope in the Southern European Area: A Study on the Integration of a Tensile Material
Author(s) -
Giovanni Ciampi,
Yorgos Spanodimitriou,
Niloufar Mokhtari,
Michelangelo Scorpio,
Antonio Rosato,
Manuela Almeida,
Sergio Sibilio
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
tecnica italiana
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0040-1846
DOI - 10.18280/ti-ijes.652-431
Subject(s) - trnsys , primary energy , energy consumption , passive house , envelope (radar) , building envelope , environmental science , civil engineering , greenhouse gas , architectural engineering , efficient energy use , engineering , thermal , meteorology , geography , electricity , geology , aerospace engineering , radar , oceanography , electrical engineering
In this paper, the energy and environmental impacts of a passive retrofit action, involving the installation, on an office building, of a second-skin system with the external layer made of a PVC-coated polyester fabric, were evaluated in terms of primary energy saving and carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The primary energy consumption and the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions associated with the considered case studies were evaluated through the dynamic simulation software TRNSYS, across a whole year. The study was carried out considering five cities (Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Marseille and Naples) in five different countries in southern Europe upon varying the orientation of the two main façades of building (north-south and east-west orientation were considered). The office building was modeled in detail considering different construction characteristics upon varying the country. The simulation results highlight that the best results in terms of PES (equal to 22.4%) in Naples, while the best results in terms of CO2 (equal to 32.0 MgCO2,eq) were obtained when the building is located in Athens. In addition, the adoption of the proposed passive lightweight retrofit solution allowed the reduction of both cooling and thermal yearly energy demand up to 57.7% (Marseille) and 17.8% (Barcelona), respectively.